Monday, February 24, 2020

Vintage Barbie Dreamhouse

Yesterday I pulled out my vintage 1960's cardboard Barbie dreamhouse and did some repair work and cleaning, as I wanted to do some holiday prep photos in the dollhouse with the vintage dolls. Alot of repair work was necessary on this older house. 




Here are two photos, after everything had been arranged and Barbie is dressed in a kimono looking at her closet. I wanted to do a Hinamatsuri scene with the vintage dolls in kimonos setting up the Hina Rement set . Before I can do that, the furniture needed stabilizing and repair, the legs had folded under. I used a clear packing tape to wrap the legs to give them stability & strength. Below- the sofa reinforced ...





the lamp I cut a piece of cardboard for the slot, but did not glue it permemantly into the slot. I am going to redo this. 


The bed needed a tape reinforcement on the headboard and on some of the legs.



the stereo also needed reinforcement on its legs as well 



I brought this house inside from the garage to do scenes for the Japanese Doll Festival (March 3rd) Hinamatsuri as it is referred to, and also St. Patrick's day. I am working on doing different scenes with the different dolls- the vintage Barbies, the mod Barbies , the Fashion Royalty/Poppy Parker dolls, as well as my French Fashion reproduction dolls.  It has been fun sorting through the dolls and getting their costumes ready, as well as their props. 

Here is my table getting ready for St. Patrick's day. 



3 comments:

Dorothy In PA said...

I am excited to see what you create. Thanks for sharing the "behind the scenes" photos. I always like to see them as they give me ideas of how to put things together and repair items.

Small Joys said...

Thank you for this little peek at the past. I'm old enough to have had one of these Barbie houses...it was great to revisit it. Thank you also for your great blog. I really enjoy it even though I don't comment much.

Lisa Neault said...

My aunt, who was 11 years older than me, had one of these for her dolls, and we played with it when she would come home from high school. I was about 5 or 6 years old. So after homework, she and I would play barbies, and she taught me how to take care of the dolls, and dress them carefully. I loved the fashions of the vintage dolls more so than the mod dolls of the late 60's early 70's. This one dreamhouse I now have is in somewhat ok condition but needs TLC. It reminds me of the happier times with my aunt when we were all young.